Eyup.
Heard a lot of police/fire sirens which we usually ignore, since we live close to a highway. We were all sound asleep at about 4:30am. Sirens didn't go away.
Wife poked head out of door and saw some water out at curb, about normal for a heavy rain, but heard police loudspeakers saying "evacuate the area". She came back in, woke me up. I got up pretty much immediately, got kids up, then got dressed.
Grabbed vital papers, yanked all the cables out of the computer, and stuck it into a garbage bag due to the rain. Opened door and found the front lawn was under a foot and a half of water. Probably ten minutes or less since wife looked.
Ran out to wife's hatchback, threw stuff in back, then ran back inside shouting at family to drop everything else and go. Wife was confused, because, in her head, the water was still out at the curb. When she saw the water lapping over the first step of the stoop, she realized it was time to go.
Grabbed the 8 year old very tightly, and held on to 12 year olds hand. Got them in car, which was filling up with water, jumped in and got it started. Turned around slowly, going with flow of water, and managed to make a turn down street towards highway which was higher ground. Got out of flood water with probably a few minutes to spare. Water was pretty much at the headlight level.
Not sure where to go, headed toward university which sits on a hill. Ended up in parking garage, drained the 4 inches of water out of car.
Went to evac center to get news. Not really any, but we did see the people who didn't make it out and slept through the sirens. They arrived at evac center in the back of dump trucks in their pajamas.
Went to Target, to get dry clothes, since we had nothing but the wet stuff we had on when we left.
They let us back in about 11am or so. To be safe, I left wife and kids on high ground and walked in. Street was muddy, and you could see where the dump truck had backed up to someone's house, due to the foot-deep furrows in the yard.
Found my car had floated into neighbors yard. Opened door and found it was a silty mess. Scared a lizard that was in it under the seat.
Opened door to house, a pier and beam.. and no visible water damage. Smelled odd.
Stepped on carpet... SQUISH. 90% of house was hit, with water soaking carpet and padding. Laundry room, which was a step down, was a muddy mess, as was all of the clothes we had stacked down there as we were getting ready for laundry day.
Neighbors on slabs got about 1.5 to 2 feet of water in their houses, including the poor college kids who lived next door. Checked on their cats for them, let them know they were ok. All sitting up on furniture meowing for help. Figured they were fine and left.
Walked back out, found our way around stalled cars and dropped her off. Sat there for a few minutes thinking. "ok, now what?" Car is a loss... it, let insurance deal with it. Anything on the floor was soaking up the nasty mucky water from the carpet. I knew we would need some place to put it, and to stage .
Went to closest storage unit, and found ONE guy had beat me there. Turns out to be a really good decision, as they all rented out in the day or two that followed. Older guy lived a block closer to river. We both got the largest units we could. Computers were down, but clerk handed me paperwork to fill out, and I promised I would get cash and return. Had to drive 20 miles, but got cash, and two large tarps that turned out to be worth their weight in gold from Academy.
Got unit, with lock. Old guy got the ONE truck they had for new unit rentals. I was nice to him, though, despite being disappointed, since I might have to suck up to him and ask for help or use of the truck.
Set out the tarps on the front lawn, and got working with kids and wife. Dumped clothes on tarps, hosed them off, since the water was still going. Turns out the ty rental house we ed about for years because it just had window unit A/Cs, but was cheap and let us pay off a lot of bills, was not a bad deal. We had water and functioning air conditioning. Most of the neighborhood didn't. Ground level condenser units were often not there.
Started packing everything as fast as possible. Co-worker showed up the first day, with his college age boy. YEAH. Owe them a lot, as the muscle was needed. Ex-boss showed up with truck, and we got a fair amount out to the unit the first day. Thank god it was memorial day and a lot of people had the day off.
The following days were exhausting. 18 hour days of packing carrying, loading, unloading, trying to save everything. Couldn't stop to help neighbors much, as we had to get ourselves set.
Volunteers started showing up at the next day. First it was a survey team for what turns out to be a Billy Graham charity. Older people, asking what was needed. What was needed was young healthy people to move out of houses.
Due to location on our block, with a slight widening of street, our house was a natural place to put dumpsters. After the dumpsters... Mennonites. Surreal. They parked a camping trailer on our lawn, after speaking to us, and the management company representing the owners of our rental house, and set up a kitchen across the street. We let them hook up to our electricity, and water.
Nice people to a person. Gave them nopalitos, and hot sauce out of cupboard. ROFL. They were game to try cactus.
Overall lucky. Everybody safe. Staying in crappy rental let us pay down bills, and we turned in the notice to vacate to management company day before flood, as we are having our first house built. New house was closer to river that flooded, but higher up and didn't flood. Move in is on the 18th.
Lost car which sucked. Was going to hold on to that sucker for another 5 years while we continue to sock away money. Staying with friend of wife for a few weeks. Management company was cool.
One thing I did was ripped out the stinky carpet and padding as we emptied rooms. Got it all out in about 3 days. Not my house, but it earned me a lot of goodwill from management company. ing house owner never called to see if his tenants were ok, so he can suck it. Asshole didn't have flood insurance, so I don't feel sorry for him. We didn't have to clean the house and we got our full damage deposit back. Spent that on rental car already.
Neighbors though are stuck. Nice blue collar neighborhood, with older retirees and a few people on disability, based on the wheelchair ramps down the block. Went back on weekend to see if they needed any help, helped Mennonites pack up, and politely refused the Jesus stuff they tried to hand me.
One of the charities did help us out. A seminary student named Justin, and his wife, helped us toward the end with some stuff. They gave us a bible, after signing it. I accepted it graciously, and thanked them.
Anyhoo.. that's it so far. Going back this weekend to check on neighbors again.
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there goes my hero 
